More than 400 Canberra households a week are rushing to join the ACT Government’s solar feed-in tariff scheme, more than twice the usual amount of applications.
And the Government has revealed that more than $4.5 million had been paid to families and businesses under the scheme and 9.5megawatts had been generated.
But the Canberra Liberals are unhappy, saying the solar feed-in-tariff will only contribute about 6per cent of the whole 40 per cent target for emission reductions.
The scheme pays ACT households a premium price for electricity they generate on their rooftop solar panels and divert into the distribution grid and has signed up more than 5100 rooftop ”micro-generation” operators since its inception in March 2009.
But Environment Minister Simon Corbell told the budget estimates committee yesterday that there had been a ”surge” in applications as consumers rushed to take part in the scheme before the Federal Government’s generous rebates cut out on July 1.
”Yes we have seen a surge in applications as a result of the Federal Government’s decision to win back the multiplier rate for renewable energy certificates,” the minister said.
”In general terms, it’s basically led to a doubling of the number of applications; we’re getting about 400 a week at the moment.”
The minister told his fellow MLAs that the territory’s stringent safety checking regime was leading to delays as ACTPLA and Actew AGL inspectors struggled to keep up with demand.
”Unlike NSW all installations in the ACT are inspected twice prior to them going live in the system,” Mr. Corbell said.
”There are additional safety checks before any system is connected to the network and that is different to NSW or any other place in the country where only random checks take place.”
Mr. Corbell said that the Government preferred to adhere to its safety regime than to allow consumers to rush into installing systems. ”I’m advised that the turnaround time for ACTPLA inspections is about two weeks, from the time inspections are requested to the time it occurs,” he said.
